Athletic footwear has become a multi-billion dollar industry. Footwear manufacturers now offer a wide variety of footwear with different shapes, ornamentation, and performance characteristics. While this wide range of choices is beneficial to a number of consumers, it can be inconvenient to running enthusiasts or other dedicated athletes. Even many amateur dedicated athletes, for example, often will require that his or her footwear have a particular set of performance characteristics. Thus, a dedicated runner may prefer footwear with a particular degree of cushioning, a particular amount of lateral stability, and with a particular width in the toe box of the footwear.
A large selection of athletic footwear offered by a manufacturer typically will contain a footwear model with an athlete's desired performance characteristics. The athlete may have difficulty, however, in identifying the particular model of footwear with those desired performance characteristics from among the large selection of available footwear. Moreover, even if the athlete can identify a footwear model having the desired performance characteristics, there is no guarantee that subsequent versions of that footwear model will share those performance characteristics. Footwear manufacturers often vary both the outward appearance of a footwear model and the performance characteristics of the footwear model on a seasonal basis. Accordingly, consistently obtaining footwear having desired performance characteristics often is a tedious irritation for dedicated athletes.